Again in the sick heads of people deciding about the form of public space Wrocław was born an thought of how to make another part of the city sick and make it more alien to its inhabitants. After curiosities specified as pushing the name "Hal Stuletia", i.e. permanent devotion to this name to the Prussian triumph above all over Poland, due to the fact that it is about this Prussian triumph, which in 1813 took Poland independence, it is time for the Grunwald Bridge.
The municipal monument conservator and the authorities of Wrocław imagined that the Grunwald Bridge should not only “recover” the form of the first decades of its existence, but that the Prussian ornaments specified as Hohenzollern coats of arms and the inscription “Keiser Brucke” should be restored on it. Pitiful coops by their authors loudly called “arguments” scorn about the expected “need to reconstruct historical shape”. So let us remind what historical fact is and what states and what people are to worship by the way of a very costly reconstruction of something which in realities completely different from present has existed for 30 years and which has been happily missing for over eighty years.
The most celebrated Wrocław bridge opened in late 1910 with the participation of his patron – Emperor of the Second Reich of German Wilhelm II Hohenzollern. It was to him that the bridge was consecrated, which was expressed in his name and in stone inscriptions, whose sound in Polish meant that it was the Imperial Bridge. With the end of planet War I, however, Emperor Wilhelm ceased to enjoy popularity in Germany. He was widely recognized as the main perpetrator of the war, which resulted in the bleeding, pauperizing and demolishing of Germany. Deposed and threatened to arrest the bridge's patron fled abroad and never returned to his homeland again. All the more so, as for apparent crimes before the global tribunal, the participants of the Versailles Conference besides intended to put it. Wilhelm II had disproportionately more on his conscience. In Poland, he was known as the patron of a number of anti-Polish persecutions, including the beating of Wrześniński children and repressions against their parents. It was under this emperor that Germany besides committed 1 of the top genocides in history, resulting in the failure of hundreds of thousands of people in Namibia. After planet War I, Germany had adequate of their own suffering, which Wilhelm II was the chief perpetrator. For this reason, the Wroclaw Imperial Bridge has been known since 1919 under the name (translating into Polish): The Freedom Bridge. The first name was only restored after Adolf Hitler came to power. However, the bridge did not last long with this name and its shape. In early 1945, in connection with the construction, at the expense of hundreds of tenement houses and respective churches, airports in the heart of the city – the dusty bridge was lowered. Towers, domes along with most of the above placed elements may have interfered with landing and starting aircraft, so they were removed by the Germans themselves. It is unclear whether the stone inscriptions “Kaiser Brucke” disappeared at the time. On the another hand, the bridge is known to have been badly affected by artillery bombings and fire. His post-war reconstruction was a major difficulty and a crucial success for Polish engineers. In the process, the restoration of what is intended to be restored present – the large stone decorations representing the perfect manifestation of German imperialism. These decorations were clearly a kind of large monuments of both German hegemony, tradition of the Hohenzoller household and the character of Emperor Wilhelm II. The rebuilt bridge after the war was named Grunwaldzki Bridge. Most likely the author of the thought of giving him specified a name was the outstanding linguist Prof. Stanisław Rospond, the chief expert of the commission dealing with the naming of Lower Silesia. The Grunwaldzki Bridge, long surrounded by the ruins of the city, besides became the most crucial symbol of the postwar reconstruction of Wrocław. The symbol may be a small inadequate, due to the fact that against the background of full districts that have not been rebuilt for a very long time, this bridge was an example of a reconstructive masterpiece – a restoration to full usage of a complex engineering object, which was close to collapse. Devoid of (and due to the deliberate actions of the Germans themselves and the demolition of war) German symbolism became in its perfect form an entirely neutral object. At the same time – just infinitely nicer than the form in which it continued in the first decades of its existence. In another words, the form of an even aggressively ideological one, attacking with his imperial – German pronunciation.
For what reasons has individual now shot at the thought to reconstruct to the Grunwald Bridge how hideous, how unusual and simply – unambiguously Polish and Polish hostile ideological content? How could 1 come up with the thought that in the heart of the Polish city there should be an inscription worshiping 1 of the most inferno enemies of Poland and Poles? Between fairy tales let's put any "need to reconstruct the historical character". In Wrocław, there are many disproportionately crucial monuments that should "regain the historical character". Let us mention at least the constant deficiency of helmets at St. Mary Magdalene's church. For specified a "restore the historical state" it is not necessary, as in the case of the Grunwald Bridge, to destruct what is. Nor is it about restoring something that was a decades-long episode from the 20th century, but about helmets that were above the Wroclaw Old Town for respective centuries! Why did individual insist that the well-inscribed scenery of the Grunwald Bridge in Wroclaw, through costly reconstructions, be turned into the abomination of Prussian Kaiser Brucke? Let us be clear that all the intentions that can stand behind specified a vile thought are disqualifying for the authors of this vile concept only and exclusively.
Artur Adamski
